Modern Day Faust

It became clear with a few weeks left in the regular season that the 2007 version of the Pittsburgh Steelers would have a very short shelf life in the 2008 playoff season. In many ways a very good team, they just made too many mistakes (particularly on special teams) that Super Bowl contenders simply cannot make and the early round exit from the annual post-season tournament to the Jacksonville Jaguars was fitting. If I experienced grief over the thing, I've clearly reached the acceptance stage. It's time to move on. Mike Tomlin's first season as coach was a success: to hope for a Super Bowl ring is one thing, but to expect it is unreasonable... particularly with the New England Patriots having a season for the ages.

Which brings me to my next point...

Who will beat the Patriots?

Well, we know it's not the Jaguars. The "Steelers of the South" were humbled last night (just like everyone else who came before them). They played admirably but (just as it did in the Steelers' loss to the Pats last month) New England took over the third quarter and the Jags couldn't keep up. It's a shame because I actually liked the Jaguars this year despite the fact that they beat the Black 'n Gold twice. Jack Del Rio is the real deal, David Garrard is a class act all the way and Fred Taylor never complained about being overlooked for most of his career. They deserved better than to lose to this Patriots team. Now they're just another notch on Tom Brady's bedpost.

I've reached the point where I don't think anyone can beat the Patriots this season, but I sure as shit hope someone will. Why all this animosity? Sure, I realize it sounds like sour grapes. Saying that type of thing is sure to draw the "don't hate the player..." cliche from New Englanders and raise their perception that Steeler fans collectively share this view.

I don't see it as sour grapes, though. I believe a true Steeler fan is, at heart, a true football fan. One who is equally happy watching a game from the aluminum bleachers in a three thousand capacity high school stadium somewhere in the hills of western Pennsylvania as they are from the padded leather rockers in a luxury box at Heinz Field. They're the type of person who talks football with their grandmothers because football is a way of life and their grandmothers have lived a lot more football.

By all accounts, Bill Belichick loves football history but I'm not convinced he has any respect for it. Nobody will ever be able to convince me that it's not important to note that the Patriots were caught cheating in the first week of the season. The mere fact that they would do something against the rules to gain a competitive advantage truly grinds my gears and should, in my opinion, forever raise doubt as to the nature of their good fortune in recent years.

Here's the problem, while watching the Jags/Pats game last night, in the third quarter I found myself thinking "There's no way everybody on this team is capable of performing so well at the same time... wouldn't it be funny if we find out in a few years that students at MIT or Harvard had discovered some new performance enhancing drug that the league was not yet aware of and Belichick decided to let them test it on his players?"

I shouldn't be having thoughts like this. I shouldn't be made to consider that the Patriots acheived a perfect regular season through some form of cheating, but this is where Belichick has led me. His hubris has undermined their accomplishments. Tom Brady's faux, off-the-field, humility turned to smugness long ago and Rodney Harrison is... well... a douchebag on the football field (I think he's probably an OK guy off of it).

Perhaps I've made all of this up in my mind and I'm sure the media has helped by fanning the flames of hatred. You see, I'm not the only person who feels this way and the national media has embraced the fact that there are legions of people who view the Patriots now, in much the same way, as baseball fandom views the Yankees. Patriots fans will claim the media is the problem and that their team is, in fact, what their record shows... Perfect in every way. They will claim that Belichick and Brady are football in its purest form and shouldn't need to be liked by people outside their fan base in order to be respected and given credit for being as good as the records they have produced.

I say that's hogwash. Respect will forever be a two-way street and Belichick (and by extension the entire Patriots' organization) shat all over our side of the street by stealing signals and showing no remorse for it.

I view the Patriots' success as almost Faustian. If God is a Steeler fan, then the Devil is a Patriot fan and Bill Belichick made some sort of deal with him to get his perfect season. God will probably sit back and allow the Devil his due for this season, because, well, God has more important things to do than worry about the NFL season and he rarely intervenes in football games. Perhaps, however, God did intervene on the Steelers behalf by allowing them take their exit at the hands of a worthy opponent instead of having to endure a second loss to the Patriots. He is a merciful God.

You have to believe, though, that God is keeping one corner of his eye on Brett Favre and if the Packers make it to the Super Bowl, we may see a real miracle. Just a thought.